Current Account Data for First Quarter of 2014
– Bottom line: Israel posted its largest-ever quarterly current account surplus in January-March 2014 — of $3.5bn. This was almost double the (revised) surplus for the fourth quarter, of $1.8bn, More...
Budget Data for May and Year-To-Date
– Bottom line: The positive trend in the budget continued through May. The key numbers showed further improvements and the only sources of concern were “second derivatives” — meaning the rate of change More...
A song of angry men
– It is one of those Junes when the sheer pace of events leaves you gasping for breath. June is not unique in attracting this kind of concentration of both dramatic and genuinely important developments, More...
Extraordinariest
– “Curiouser and curiouser” is the phrase in Alice in Wonderland that expresses the poor girl’s increasing confusion at the weird things happening to her. Language purists would doubtless prefer “more More...
Israel : Trade Data for January – April 2014
– Bottom line: The trade deficit for April posted another significant deterioration, widening to US$2.2bn on an unadjusted basis and to US$1.87bn on a seasonally-adjusted basis and excluding ships, More...
Reality intrudes
– Last week’s column noted the surprising strength that has recently characterized the European financial markets — from the euro itself, which touched 1.40 dollars last Thursday, to the equity More...
Israel : Budget Data for April and January-April 2014
– Bottom line: April saw a further improvement in the fiscal situation, maintaining the positive trend. There are no signs of weakness in the economy in these data– on the contrary, the increase More...
VE Day
– For Western Europe and North America May 8th is VE Day. The Russians, for technical reasons, mark May 9th as VE Day, but it’s essentially the same thing. It marks the formal surrender of Nazi More...
Yuan seen nuthin’
– Do you know what the exchange rate of the Chinese yuan is against the US dollar? Approximately? If you do, good for you. In the much more likely case that you don’t, you are in good company. More...
The market is rigged
– The integrity of the markets is at the heart of our economy. High-frequency trading undermines that integrity and causes the market to lose credibility and investors to lose trust. This hurts our economy More...